Cheap prices paid in blood money

Whose hands are stained by the blood of more than a thousand Bangladesh factory workers killed last month?

Whose hands are stained by the blood of more than a thousand Bangladesh factory workers killed last month?

Just look in the mirror.

That's right, you and me.

The garment factory, located in the Rana Plaza building in Savar, collapsed last month shortly after workers arrived for their morning shifts. Officials said shoddy construction and a reckless disregard for the workers safety were to blame.

But we share it too.

There are probably dozens of factories like it in places like Pakistan, Macau, Indonesia, Cambodia, China and Vietnam, to name a few.

These factories employ labor that, despite our ethnocentric tendencies, are paid well compared with the agricultural workers that dominate many of those countries. Why? Because the garment workers have a skill — they can sew or knit a garment.

And few of these countries have anything close to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration or strict enforcement of building codes.

That's out of our control, so why blame ourselves? It's simple — when we buy clothes, we look at the price tag, not the country of origin tag. We don't care where something is made. Morality rarely plays a part in the purchase decision.

We like cheap prices, especially now when our money must go a longer way. Yet we can buy value without supporting hazardous working conditions in disadvantaged areas.

It really comes down to ethics.

Corporate responsibility is to a company as a belief system is to a person. Like people, some businesses have stronger ethics than others. And also like people, some businesses only behave ethically when there are consequences to their actions.

I've seen plenty of clean, safe factories overseas, but there are always some that are willing to cut corners for blood money.

The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh is a binding contract signed by a number of mostly European companies to ensure higher fire and safety standards at manufacturing facilities in that country.

Wal-Mart and other retailers refused to sign the agreement. The world's largest retailer didn't want it to be legally binding.

I don't blame them. It reduces their competitive advantage. But I'm rethinking my shopping strategy. After all, that's the one thing in my control.

Signing the agreement is an indication of corporate responsibility.

We can't possibly know the manufacturing conditions behind the goods we buy. And I never look at the country of origin label since it's usually hidden by the XXL tag. But we can evaluate the manufacturers' belief systems in part by seeing the efforts they make to avoid hazardous working conditions.

When the decrepit five-story building in Bangladesh collapsed, it killed 1,127 souls, guilty of nothing more than showing up for work.

When I look in the mirror, I'd rather not see one of those responsible.

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